This interview is part of the Institute's "Conversations with History" series, and uses Internet technology to share with the public Berkeley's distinction as a global forum for ideas.

Welcome to a Conversation with History. Our guest today is Donald Richie, who
visited the Bay Area as a special guest speaker at UC Berkeley's Pacific
Film Archive, where he read from his writings and introduced the Kon
Ichikawa film An Actor's Revenge. Donald Richie is an American expatriate
who has lived in Japan for most of the last fifty years and has written extensively
about Japan, its culture, and its people. He's the author of thirty books, and
some of his writings have been collected in the recently published Donald
Richie Reader.

Japan: Discovery ... foreign service in Japan ... staff writer for Stars and Stripes
... reviewing American films ... secretly watching Japanese films ...
the advantage of not knowing the language when watching cinema ... Western
influence on Ozu and Kurosawa ... Ozu as modernist ... bringing Japanese
cinema to the West

Finding a Voice as an Expatriate Writer ... expatriation as self-expression ... freedom in outsider role ... empowered
to compare and describe ... writing as habit ... feelings and writing
... Japan filled a need ... writing as a discipline like bodybuilding
... writing validates the days

Japan: Retrospect ... summarizing the Japanese experience ... metamorphosis of Japanese culture...
Japanese-like quality of his writing ... conclusion